Treating Worker Dissatisfaction During Economic Change

Morley D. Glicken, Ben Robinson

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780123970060
• eBook ISBN: 9780123972620
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Clinical Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In the current economy, companies are expected to turn on a dime in response to changing market needs to stay vibrant. What that means is that companies are constantly reorganizing. Employees are living in a constant state of change. This dynamic in the workplace has affected worker satisfaction, morale, and burnout. This is the first treatment manual to focus on treating job-related issues, whether it's conflict in the workplace, stress, burnout, performance, and more. Divided into two parts, Part One sets the stage with a discussion of the economic climate and how it impacts businesses, how business reacts to it, and how the new business climate affects employees. Part Two lays out the most current research on effectively treating work-related client issues. Individual, group, and organizational interventions are included, along with case examples, practical treatment exercises, checklists, and outlines for treatment.- Summarizes how the changing workplace impacts workers- Covers effective ways of treating and preventing worker problems- Includes case examples of treating common workplace depression, accidents, substance abuse, violence, stress, illness, conflict, and performance- Discusses individual, group, and organizational interventions- Provides online exercises, checklists, evaluation formats, and outlines for treatment- Integrates issues of diversity including race, ethnicity, age, and gender

Part One

Understanding and Identifying Work-Related Problems

Chapter 1 The Serious Problems in the American Workplace

Chapter 2 Understanding Job Stress, Job Dissatisfaction, and Worker Burnout

Chapter 1

The Serious Problems in the American Workplace

Introduction

This is a book about what goes wrong on the job and what can be done to right it. It is written for workers, human resource managers, middle managers, and therapists specializing in work-related problems. Both authors are social work educators who have extensive managerial experience. We write this book because of our concern that work is becoming a joyless, stressful, and oppressive experience for too many workers and managers. This chapter provides data about job unhappiness and burnout that should be a wakeup call to organizations that think workers are in an endless supply and are unconcerned with the costs associated with finding, training, and keeping new workers.

As both managers and employees, we are sensitive to both populations and strive to make the book as applicable and useful as we can. We are also therapists and will provide information we trust you will find helpful in dealing with work-related problems that increasingly affect many workplaces in the midst of a down economy that places extra pressure on everyone to work harder and longer and to receive less in return.

To make this task easier for you, the reader, we will include the latest research, give real experiences of others dealing with problems in the workplace, and offer suggestions and solutions we hope you will find of value. And we will cover a number of work-related problems in the book, including worker burnout, job dissatisfaction and low morale, unemployment and under-employment, harassment and bias toward women and minorities, workplace violence, workers who are work-addicted, and many others.

The Landscape of Work in the Current Economy

The economic climate in the United States is in its worst condition since the Great Depression. Although the official unemployment rate at the end of December, 2011 was 8.5%, a Gallup poll (Jan. 5, 2012) wrote that “Underemployment, a measure that combines the percentage of workers who are unemployed with the percentage working part-time but wanting full-time work, was 18.2% in December, 2011” (p. 1). While this is down somewhat from December, 2010, Gallup believes that there is little reason for optimism and that many workers who are no longer receiving unemployment compensation, and who have stopped looking for jobs, are not reported in the official unemployment calculations and that the actual rate of unemployment in the country is far higher.

Lawrence Summers, President Clinton’s Treasury Secretary and one of President Obama’s economic advisors, notes that recent surveys have found that 40% of Americans believe that capitalism and the free market economy are incapable of sustaining the relatively high employment rates of the past and writes, “Few would confidently bet that the US or Europe will see a return to full employment as previously defined within the next 5 years. The economies of both are likely to be constrained by demand for a long time. One in six American men between 25 and 54 are likely to be out of work even after the US economy recovers” (Summers, January 9, 2012, p. 1). The Economist (2010, p. 1) also believes that unemployment will be a long-term problem and states:

… policymakers need urgently to think beyond stimulus measures, and also to adopt more targeted policies to help the millions stuck in the wrong place with the wrong skills. Otherwise, even a return to brisk economic growth (something that scarcely looks likely right now) will not be enough to rescue them from the breadline.

Unemployment has severe social, emotional, and financial consequences. A study of 1,200 unemployed workers reported by Deprez (September 3, 2009) for Bloomberg Business News found that overwhelming majorities of the survey’s respondents said they feel or have experienced anxiety, helplessness, depression, and stress after being without a job. Many said they have experienced sleeping problems and strained relationships and have avoided social situations as a result of their job loss. Still others described diminished hopes of finding employment at older ages, and feelings that advanced degrees are useless or have caused potential employers to think they’re overqualified. Some said they have questioned their self-identity after they had allowed their professional careers to define them, and some reported difficulty finding credit to begin new businesses (p. 1).

Davidson (April 16, 2012) reports that lawsuits filed by workers against employers rose 32% against the same data in 2008. The main complaints in the lawsuits were that workers put in more time than their 40 hours without overtime pay and were forced to work off the clock. Other complaints included having jobs misclassified as exempt from overtime requirements and that, because of smartphones and other devices, work bled into personal time. The major complaint, however, is that productivity per worker hour more than doubled in 2009 and 2010 because companies ignored labor laws that prohibit practices that violate a worker’s rights. Many of the lawsuits are class action suits where numerous employees are represented, forcing the Department of Labor to hire 300 more investigators to protect workers, particularly those “in high risk industries that employ low-wage and vulnerable workers such as those in hotels and restaurant work” (p. 2A).

Examples of Bad workplace Experiences

The following are examples of how badly done the termination experience can be.

• Matt Cooper, an executive at Accolo, a recruitment outsourcing company, wrote in the New York Times (January 31, 2009) that when the company began having financial problems and downsizing became necessary, upper level executives called employees into a conference room, one at a time, told them they were fired, and had them walk to their offices, pack up their personal items, and immediately leave. One of his co-workers was so frightened of being called in that he hid in his cubicle until a vice president of the company found him and told him the bad news.

• Jean Colette, a supervising OR nurse at a New Jersey Hospital told me that every June, 50 people are fired across staff lines. The hospital decides if their salaries and benefits are consistent with the quality of their work. Because the fiscal year runs July 1st to June 30th, the director of each department calls people into their office on June 29th and gives them the bad news and a severance packet. Because older and more experienced workers make better salaries and are usually more effective at their jobs, it’s often the very best people who get fired. Anxiety is so bad in June, Colette told me, that almost nothing gets done.

• Amber Elefson, a public health professional working for a non-profit in San Diego (her identity has been changed to protect her ability to network), and pregnant with her first child, asked her employer if her job was secure and was told that it was. Two weeks later, amid glowing reviews of her work and praise for special projects she had done, she was terminated because of severe budget constraints.

Fortunately, she had heeded the advice to continue networking and was able to move on to a new job, almost seamlessly, but she remains skeptical about the ability of supervisors to foresee the future. “When they need to fire you,” she told me, “management often makes quick decisions. Program or front-line staff is cut first. Because mid-level managers haven’t been privy to higher level budget discussions, it often comes as a shock.” Ms. Elefson told me her supervisor “drove two hours and cried when she told me I was being terminated. She said that it was the most difficult thing she had done in 30 years as a professional.”

To add to the emotional impact of unemployment, the study reported by Deprez (September 3, 2009, p. 1) found that many of the laid off workers had no advanced information about their job security and consequently had little time to prepare emotionally or financially. The report notes that:

• 60% of the respondents received no advance warning of their layoff;

• 84% received no severance package or other compensation;

• 43% of those unemployed reported having received unemployment benefits in the past year;

• 61% described themselves as “very concerned” their benefits would expire before they found a job.

To further complicate matters, the average wage of US workers has not been keeping pace. In 1997, the average wage in the United States was 11th-highest among all nations. The difference between the highest wage country, Switzerland, and the United States was $7.00 an hour. In December, 2011 the United States had slipped to 14th among all nations but the differential between the country with the highest hourly wage, Norway ($57.53/hour), and the United States ($34.74/hour) was fully $22.79 an hour (Bureau of Labor Statistics, December, 2011). Part of the cost per hour differential is related to benefits. In European countries the average benefit is 40% of compensation whereas in the United States it is 33%, leaving a much greater amount of direct costs to US workers in health insurance, lower vacation and sick days allowed, and benefits we have never seen in the United States, including 35-hour work-weeks and up to 9 months in leave to care for newly born children.

Writing for Yahoo Finance, Snyder (July 15, 2010) believes that the middle class is not only being systematically wiped out of existence in America, but that more American workers are actually moving into poverty because of low wages, and provides the following data as evidence:

• Eighty-three percent of all US stocks are in the hands of 1% of the people.

• Sixty-one percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49% in 2008 and 43% in 2007.

• Sixty-six percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

• Thirty-six percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.

• A staggering 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.

• Twenty-four percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.

• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32% increase over 2008.

• Only the top 5% of US households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

• For the first time in US history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 and 500 to one.

• As of 2007, the bottom 80% of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

• The bottom 50% of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.

• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17% when compared with 2008.

• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.

• The top 1% of US households own nearly twice as much of America’s corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.

• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

• More than 40% of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.

• For the first time in US history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the US Department of Agriculture projected that number would go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.

• Approximately 21% of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010—the highest rate in 20 years.

• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16% to 7.8 million in 2009.

• The top 10% of Americans now earn around 50% of our national income.

But more telling than the data is the feedback we get from workers. Here’s what one worker told us: “I work for a large corporation and,...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• About the Authors
• Preface
• Part One: Understanding and Identifying Work-Related Problems
• Part Two: Major Work-Related Problems that Lead to Job Dissatisfaction and Burnout
• Part Three: Using Human Resource and Management Approaches to Prevent Work-Related Problems
• Part Four: Effective Treatment for Work-Related Problems
• Appendix A. The CES-D Depression Scale—Useful in Determining Worker Burnout
• Appendix B. Forced Early Retirement Stress Because of Burnout and Job Loss
• Appendix C. Managing Workers Using the New Interactive Technologies
• Index